Chapter 22: The Tiny Tiny Morgan Who’s Been Seen Through
“Sorry, I have already accepted the invitation from Hong Kong University. I will go to Hong Kong University to give lectures this summer. I can only regretfully decline the East University side.”
Lin Ran was very polite, but his tone was extremely firm.
Even without the invitation from Hong Kong University, he had no intention of going to Japan to serve as a visiting professor.
After returning to 1960, while checking information to understand this era, he discovered something very interesting: neither Yang Zhenning nor Tsung-Dao Lee had ever given lectures in Japan.
As for Yang Zhenning, unless it was an academic conference, he wouldn’t even give ordinary lectures. He didn’t serve as a visiting professor at the Japanese Academy of Sciences until 2010.
(Professor Yang Zhenning’s 2011 Japanese Academy of Sciences speech promotion poster; serving as a visiting professor at the Japanese Academy of Sciences starting from 2010)
And Tsung-Dao Lee also didn’t go to Japan.
He had received the Rising Sun Golden Ray Medal awarded by Japan, but that was in 07, and the reason for the award wasn’t for promoting academic exchange or contributions to Japanese academia; it was simply because 2007 was the 50th anniversary of his Nobel Prize, and it was an honor awarded by Japan to outstanding figures in Asia.
So Lin Ran was very curious whether there were no invitations or some other reason. During the casual chat after the interview, Lin Ran specifically asked, and both of their explanations were national hatred and grievances: science knows no borders, but scientists have borders; they couldn’t cultivate talent for Japan.
Even the two predecessors were like this, so Lin Ran was even less able to do something like Sino-Japanese friendship and go to Japan to give lectures, even though Japan’s offered two-month compensation was already equal to one year’s salary at Columbia University.
“President Huang, I will only talk about academia in Hong Kong, nothing else. I will stay in Hong Kong for two months, have time to teach some students, answer some questions. I think my academic achievements in the field of mathematics should be able to solve quite a few difficult problems.”
After learning that Lin Ran had accepted the Hong Kong invitation, Huang Yunji’s sense of smell was extremely sharp. A few days later, he came to the door under the pretext of delivering local specialties.
Lin Ran took the Shanghai specialty red bean cake from the other party’s hand, then understood the meaning of the other party asking about his ancestral home during the interview: asking about the ancestral home to tell readers was fake; asking so he could prepare to deliver hometown specialties was real.
Under the premise that both sides were smart people, Huang Yunji naturally understood Lin Ran’s meaning.
“I can provide help with academic problems; other things are off the table.”
Amid the influx of various figures—mathematicians, Chinese descent scientists, reporters, etc.—these he could guess, but there were also some he couldn’t.
This guest he couldn’t guess was John Adams Morgan, a member of the Morgan family, whose mother came from the Adams family.
The Morgan family was renowned on the Chinese Internet because of Big and Small Morgan.
But the Adams family was the first family in America to produce father-son presidents, holding in their hands the military-industrial complex Raytheon company, also a proper old-line family.
As the product of the marriage alliance between both sides, John Adams Morgan was an absolute figure with real power within the Morgan family. He was only thirty years old at this time, serving as a partner at an old-line investment bank in New York.
And John Morgan was clearly unwilling to just be a partner; he hoped to seize more power within the Morgan family, so he specifically sought out Lin Ran.
“Professor, I know you. You have made outstanding contributions in the field of mathematics, but you are more interested in aerospace. Professor Horkheimer hopes we can give you an opportunity, saying you have talent different from ordinary people.
The old guys in the family don’t believe it, but I do.
I am willing to give you an opportunity to get what you want.”
John Morgan’s appearance was that of an old-line white person, but particularly robust. Later Lin Ran learned that the other party was a former Olympic champion.
In the high-end restaurant specially booked, Lin Ran had a feeling that the other party was extremely eager to prove himself, wanting to control the entire negotiation rhythm in his own hands.
But how could he let you have your way? Even if leveraging the power of the Jewish community, even facing a colossus like Morgan, the information gap of the next sixty years wasn’t for show.
“Eisenhower can’t sit still?
It seems the media has angered the Elephant Party and Eisenhower.”
(Satirical cartoon from American media after the Soviet Union launched a satellite, mocking Eisenhower for only knowing about playing golf in response to the Soviet Union’s satellite launch.)
“Let me guess: to surpass the Soviet Union, obviously the moon landing is the best choice.
The Soviet Union’s Sputnik 1 has already gone into space, and their Sputnik 2 even sent a little dog into space.
If it’s just sending people into space, the White House has no confidence in being faster than the Soviet Union’s progress.
Only a project like the moon landing, with a sufficiently long cycle and sufficiently many technical difficulties in between, has value and possibility in chasing.
So the White House plans to do the moon landing?”
Before John Morgan could speak, Lin Ran knocked on the table with his hand to signal the other party not to rush to answer, as he wasn’t finished yet:
“For the moon landing, it will definitely require feasibility demonstration first; this is a big project, as big as it gets.
It requires meticulous preliminary demonstration.
Not everyone can take it on.
With Morgan’s influence in the White House, they should have gotten the news early: the White House is organizing a feasibility demonstration, needing various companies to submit proposals, and the winning proposal will get America’s moon landing order.
Companies with this capability are only a few.”
In 1892, under Morgan’s leadership, Edison General Electric merged with Thomson-Houston Electric to form General Electric, and Edison faded out.
Although General Electric’s name includes “electric,” it spans too many fields, including the field of aerospace.
But in the field of aerospace, General doesn’t have an advantage; even the aerospace-related departments within General aren’t influential internally, somewhat marginalized.
“Mister, you want me to participate in General Electric’s feasibility study report writing for the moon landing proposal, to help General Electric strive for NASA’s order, right?
And if we can strive for the order, with your influence within the Morgan family, General Electric will probably spin off the aerospace sector to become a new company, General Aerospace.
General Aerospace might not fail to become a colossus like General Electric, just like your grandfather’s takeover of General Electric, and you could also leverage creating a colossus like General Electric to become the patriarch of the Morgan family.”
Before coming to see Lin Ran, John Morgan not only greeted Professor Horkheimer but also asked Haines working at NASA about Lin Ran’s situation. It was precisely because he had some understanding of Lin Ran’s attainments in the field of aerospace that he came to find him.
Haines said Lin Ran was a bit special, but he didn’t believe it—how special could he be?
But after Lin Ran finished speaking, John Morgan really had the feeling that his soul had been seen through. Damn, this was eerie.
